Exit of the I-man aka the Don Imus Fiasco

Unless you have been in outer space or you are Knut, the Berlin polar bear cub, you must have heard about Don Imus and his big mouth.
For those of you who are not familiar with this person – he was the CBS Radio talk-show host of “Imus in the Morning”.
His trademark was a combination of discussions about politics and culture, mixed with crude and vulgar humor.
So much for the taste of his listeners.
He liked insulting people on air - during an interview with former General Electric CEO Jack Welch and his wife-unit Suzy Wetlaufer about their book “Winning”, Imus referred to Suzy as "been around more times than a fan belt."

But when he started discussing the appearance of the Rutgers women’s basketball team, all hell broke loose.
Instead of applauding these women for being smart, ambitious and blessed with athletic bodies (Paris Hilton, eat your heart out!), he spouted racial slurs.

Ironically enough, this washed out, Caucasian, over-the-hillbilly borrowed words from the hip hop world – for reasons unclear to one and all.
How this could be perceived by Imus as even remotely funny or entertaining is a mystery to me. Obviously, the ‘60s were too good to him and must have fried the moral code part of his muddled brain.

This time, thanks to the public outcry, the whole issue went online, was shown on YouTube and reached a global audience thanks to networks such as CNN and Fox.
Needless to say, viewers outside of the USA were baffled and wondered how this washout ex-junkie was able to host a radio show for so long, raking in millions for his bosses, sponsors and himself.
Ah, American culture!
The issue was settled in a typical American way as well – the sponsors pulled their ad millions from the show, since their customers were upset.
Forget about Barack and Oprah taking the moral high ground – it’s the all-powerful dollar that settled the issue.
Ergo, exit Imus.

Imus is no fool – he issued a public apology that was promptly accepted by the Rutgers’ team.
This will leave his options open to move to another radio station or follow fellow shock jock Howard Stern to satellite radio.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Sirius and XM already started a bidding war.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if he already started penning his autobiography “from fame to shame” or something similar – and if anybody knows how to market it, it’s Imus himself!

The ones that should get a sweet deal out of it are –of course- the Rutgers ladies, who handled the whole issue with a lot of class.
I expect companies such as Dove and Patagonia to step in and use them as models for their products.
Charities should jump on the opportunity to have them as spokespersons.
If not, I hope that they all graduate with top marks – and may the lawyers among them sue bigots like Imus for every penny they ever made!

Something is happening in the State of Belgium

Belgium is known for its chocolates and waffles. Apart from that, it’s one of the least known countries in Europe.
OK, some art lovers might know that Van Eyck and P.P. Rubens hailed from what is now Belgium, but the little country squeezed between France and The Netherlands doesn’t exactly have a global image.
Since its creation and split from its northern neighbor, it has been divided between the Flemish (Dutch) speaking north and the French speaking south.
The Belgians are often the victim of jokes, but it’s rare that they are the ones creating a hoax.
But that is what happened.

December 2006, the national broadcasting company in French, RTBF , broke into regular programming with an urgent bulletin:
"Flemish parliament has unilaterally declared the independence of Flanders (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium)” and that King Albert and Queen Paola had left on the first air force plane available.
Grainy pictures from the military airport showed dark silhouettes of a royal entourage boarding a plane, possibly on their way to the Congo.
RTBF then aired an interview with secessionist MP Jean-Marie Dedecker, who proudly declared: "At last my dream has been realised".

The broadcast showed 50 or so jubilant demonstrators waving the yellow-and-black flag with the Flemish Lion outside the legislature.
A small crowd of monarchists rallied outside the royal palace waving the Belgian flag.

Only after a half hour did the station flash the message: "This is fiction."
Fadila Laanan, the Walloon media minister was the one who forced the station to run the disclaimer. Too little, too late.
Not only Belgians fell for the hoax, worried ambassadors asked what they had to tell their capitals.
As with Orson Wells famous “The War of the Worlds”, it took some time before people realized it was a hoax.

The program makers defended the hoax, stating that they wanted to spark a debate about the risk of Flanders' secession and the possible collapse of the country.
RTBF's news chief, Yves Thiran, told the BBC that the program was meant as a wake-up call: "Our intention was to show Belgian viewers the intensity of the issue of the future of Belgium and the real possibility of Belgium no longer being a country in a few months. We obviously scared many people - maybe more than we expected."

Not everyone saw it that way - Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt slammed the show, adding that it would only serve to increase tensions between Dutch-speakers in Flanders and French-speakers in Wallonia.
"It is very bad Orson Welles, in very poor taste," remarked his spokesman.
"In the current context, it is irresponsible for a public television channel to announce the end of Belgium as a reality presented by genuine journalists."

The good news: it brought Belgium to attention of the world and we don't have to memorize two new country names and capitals.

The bad news, mapmakers, text book writers, graphic studios, diplomats and last but not least Belgian royals loose out on new job opportunities!

Quel dommage! Wat een pech!

Humor as a weapon of mass exposure – the Borat success story

Sacha Baron Cohen is a brilliant Cambridge University-educated British comedian who is able to amuse most of us while irritating an entire nation.
You see, Cohen’s alter ego is Borat Sagdiyev, a television news reporter making a meager living in the struggling country of Kazakhstan.

In his brilliant parodies, “Borat” tells the world about his beautiful home country of Kazakhstan (a urine-drinking, Jew-hating, inbred society).
He is wonderfully political incorrect and gets away with it.
In the process, he exposes the hypocrisy of many.
No subject is safe - sexual orientation, religion, culture....it's all fair game.

In one skit, Cohen pokes fun at conspiracy theories by stating as Borat that “when in America he travels by car just in case the Jews repeat their attack of 9/11.”

To satirize homophobia, Borat asked an anthropologist: "Are you a homo sapiens? Because it doesn't matter if you are."

At a feminist gathering, Borat was political incorrect and misogynic by "innocently" extolling the virtues of Baywatch.

The branding of the Borat character is brilliant – just check out the Borat website and notice the misspelling, MySpace mentioning, and photo album.

Needless to say, the people of Kazakhstan were not amused.
The tourist department even shut down Cohen's borat.kz website.
(It was immediately redirected to www.borat.tv)

To boost their national image, the Kazakh government took out a pricey four-page full-color ad in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune today.
The special four-page insert entitled "Kazakhstan in the 21st Century" features a photo of the country's president Nursultan Nazarbayev on its front page shaking hands with President George W. Bush.
This piece of crisis management didn’t come cheaply – such ads are around $300,000 - $400,000 - Kazakhstan's per capita income was approximately $8,000….

To boost its image, Kazakhstan submitted its $50m tribal epic movie called Nomad, co-directed by Sergei Bodrov, Talgat Temenov and Ivan Passer, for the Oscar 2007 nominations.

Unfortunately for the poor Kazakhs, Barat beat them to it.
His movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” hit the theaters in November 2006 and already won raves from critics and fans alike.
The movie tells the story of our favorite Kazakh reporter, traveling from his dirt-poor, Kazakh village of Kuzcek (“3 mile north of fence to Jewtown”) to New York on behalf of the Ministry of Tourism.
He must observe the western way of life and report back with any information that could benefit his native land.
The plan is to stick with the culture of New York, but soon after Borat learns to use the television remote control he is compelled to take his journey to the west coast.
Seduced by "Baywatch" and learning of his Kazakh wife's death (via telegram) in a very short span, Borat makes his new mission to woo and marry buxom Hollywood starlet Pamela Anderson.

In the movie, Borat attacks many groups and subcultures as a bumbling foreigner and gains the trust of his interviewees.
Through his native questions, he cleverly coaxes brutally honest responses out of his interviewees, who are only too happy to tell him what they really think.
It’s not a pretty picture – one old rodeo guy would like “us to take care of gays here as they do in Muslim countries”.
It also shows how the Western ideal of freedom of speech can cause a global controversy.

Staying non-stop in character, Cohen wowed the crowds at the London premiere of his movie by stating:
"I have come here with Bilak, my 11 year old son, his wife and their child, and we are hoping maybe to put some chocolate make-up on the child's face and sell him to Madonna.
I am hoping that Madonna will be a very good father for it."

Cohen also unwittingly exposed the BBC as biased towards religion and politics.
In an exercise to check the attitude of its executive staff, the BBC presented its executives with the following scenario.
Suppose Sasha Baron Cohen participates in a BBC program studio program titled ‘Room 101’, where guests are asked for their opinions on different issues, and are allowed to symbolically throw things they hated in a garbage bin.
What would you, as our BBC executive do if Cohen decided to throw ‘Kosher food’, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bible, and the Koran in the garbage bin?

Not surprisingly, the BBC executives said they would allow everything to be thrown in the garbage bin, save the Koran, for "fear of offending the British Muslim community."
Enough said….

Going Plutonic

I love SF, which is a Good Thing, since I work in high tech (the science part) and my salary is fiction.
But even for Trekkies, the downgrading of Pluto is weird, really weird.
Poor Pluto was discovered in 1930 by 24-year-old American astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, Clyde Tombaugh.
The Naming Game soon started.
It was 11-year-old Venetia Burney, from Oxford, England, who suggested the name.
It was chosen from a long list that included Atlas, Apollo, Zeus, Minerva and even Bacchus. Needless to say, reporters of the New York Times pitched Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and intoxication.
I blame the International Astronomical Union, which had nothing better to do than shaking up our solar system.
They redefined “planet” as:
"a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit".
It seems that poor Pluto wobbles a bit and was therefore stripped of its planet status and demoted to a wannebee or “dwarf” planet.
I haven’t got a clue what that means – can Pluto grow up and become a proper planet?
I am also not sure what will happen to Pluto’s moon Charon. Will it become Ice Cube?
So our Pluto is out of the cosmic planet club, and globetrotting Luciano Pavarotti is in.
Good thing his family name starts with a P as well – makes us all less p-d off.

After 76 years, Pluto stepped down as a planet. Let’s hope that British Bess gets the hint and does the same for her son Charles.

Needless to say, people (I am referring to us Terrans, since I have no clue how the Martians are taking it. If the movie “Mars Attacks!” is anything to go by, not kindly, methinks) are not happy.

But the stripping of Pluto of its planet status launched a merchandise wave that would do credit to any presidential campaign.
Scores of Web-savvy entrepreneurs went on the Internet, selling Pluto memorabilia from T-shirts and mugs to bumper stickers and mouse pads.
Within 24 hours of the “bad” news, a wave of Pluto items appeared on Cafepress.com, (a San Francisco-area Internet company that prints T-shirts and other merchandise), including 200 designs on more than 1,500 products.
Many items and slogans related to Pluto's demotion and advocated its return with T-shirts proclaiming "Save Pluto" and "Stop Planetary Discrimination."

What the eggheads of the IAU didn’t understand, is that we ordinary people were quite happy with the nine planets we knew.
Let’s face it – does the downgrade bring us any benefits? Tax cuts, world peace, cure for AIDS? I don’t think so!
Au contraire, we now have to memorize one planet less and a few candidate planets more (including one called Xena, that unfortunately doesn’t have anything to do with the Warrior Princess).

To quote Dr. Hiroshi Kyosuke of the University of Tokyo:
"It seems counterintuitive to me that we should say Pluto is no longer a planet, yet Donald Rumsfeld is still Secretary of Defense. After all, Pluto has done no harm."

Hear, hear!
Pluto the dog, who made his debut in 1930, couldn’t agree more.
According to Disney insiders, he worries about the fate of this namesake and all the textbooks that must be rewritten.

Personally, I think that we can do a better job of classifying and naming planets than those spaced-out cosmos cowboys.

Mercury – Mini-me, since it’s small and fairly close to Earth.

Venus – Viagra, and let the pharmaceutical industry sponsor this hard rock.

Earth – Ego, since that’s what we have, in abundance.

Mars – Mars, since too many Mars movies have been made and we don’t want to upset our green neighbors, so we?

Jupiter – Juniper, since this berry gave us far more pleasure in the form of gin than this huge planet ever did.

Saturnus – Ringtone, if you wonder why, just have a look at its shape – Nokia can be a sponsor (“connecting aliens”)

Uranus – U2, for the mispronunciation by English speaking pubertal adolescents alone.
Great sponsoring opportunity for Bono as well.

Neptune – Loonytune, since only a loony could have named a gas ball after the god of oceans and seas.

Pluto – Exepluto, since it’s exit for the poor thing and it sounds like a really cool computer program (that is, as long as it’s not a Microsoft product).

For know, Pluto did one thing, that many of its fellow planets were not able to do – to get more coverage than the Klingon planets!

The Gibson Disaster

Last Friday, Mel Gibson was arrested in the early hours for speeding along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, the famous beach town North of Los Angeles.
Well, happens to best of us, you might think.
(Although most of us don’t drive around in a Lexus).

The arresting officer told the drunken actor that he was supposed to cuff him but would not, as long as Gibson cooperated.
Fair enough, I would think. But what does our thespian do?
He informed the deputy: “I'm not going to get in your car," and promptly bolted.
Our law enforcement officer quickly subdued Gibson, cuffed him and put him inside the patrol car.
Up till now, nothing special.
Instead of keeping his mouth shut, Australia’s import starting acting out once he was inside the police car.
"You mother f****r. I'm going to f*** you," he informed the astounded policeman.
After these crude words, Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: "F*****g Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Gibson then asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?"
(The police officer wisely didn't respond).

When this Gibson Monologue escalated, the arresting officer called ahead for a sergeant to meet them as soon as they would arrive at the station.
Upon arrival, a sergeant began videotaping Gibson, who noticed the camera and then said, "What the f*** do you think you're doing?"
Gibson then noticed a female sergeant and yelled, "What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"
(If you are interested, you can download the report from the entertainment website www.tmz.com)

The next day, after spending the night in a detox cell and posting a $5,000 bail, Mel G. apologized o for driving while drunk and for his "belligerent behavior" towards the deputy sheriffs who arrested him.
Mmmm, doesn’t sound like a sincere apology to me.
I also miss the reference to his anti-Semitic remarks.
Not that I am surprised, mind you.
For one, Gibson is a staunch Catholic (nothing wrong there), who shares many beliefs of the Traditionalist Catholic movement.
This sect rejects some or all reforms started by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.
It’s quite funny that he became so successful in hedonist Hollywood.
That must explain the private chapel Mel built.
The Holy Family Catholic Church is run out of Gibson's Icon Production company offices, with an Icon employee responsible for keeping the church's books and Gibson and his wife Robyn as director. The Gibsons donate money (tax free, of course!) of via the AP Reilly Foundation, a charity they established for the sole purpose of creating the church.
Pennywise, but definitely not Pound-foolish!

Mel’s father, Hutton Gibson, has repeated claimed that the Holocaust was exaggerated. According to Gibson Père, Jews are out to create "one world religion and one world government" and outlined a conspiracy theory involving Jewish bankers, the US Federal Reserve and the Vatican, among others.
Oy vey!

To come back to the current peccadilloes of M.G., the media (including the New York Times and Fox) jumped on the story, not in the least due to the current wars raging in the Middle East.
Thanks to the worldwide web, the story spread like wildfire.
As the New York Times correctly pointed out, in a little over 24 hours, Mr. Gibson’s arrest and subsequent behavior in Malibu had already prompted talk of a claimed cover-up, an exposé, worldwide news coverage, an apology and then a full-blown push for alcohol rehabilitation, even as his representatives and executives at the Walt Disney Company rushed to catch up with the event’s effect on the filmmaker’s movie and television projects with the company.

The fallout was instantly: on Monday, Hope Hartman, a spokeswoman for Disney’s ABC television network, said the company was dropping its plans to produce a Holocaust-themed miniseries in collaboration with Mr. Gibson.

Needless to say, this is a huge relief - I think all of us can do without this "treat".
To quote Rabbi Marvin Hier, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center:
“I don’t think he should be doing a film on the Holocaust. It would be like asking someone associated with the K.K.K. to do a movie on the African-American experience.”

There is an expression: “in vino veritas” – therefore, one remark our Mel (who promptly checked into rehab) made, hits home: “My life is f****d.”

And if you look at his photo, you see an uncanny resemblance to another notorious anti-Semite…

The Case of the Cursing Parrot

We all read stories or watched pirate movies with cursing parrots perched on the shoulder of a mean, one-legged sailor.
Well, such a bird is currently making headlines.
The Bird (name unknown) has the habit of screaming phrases such as “maniac”, “homo” and “son of a bitch” at regular intervals.
The bird belonged to an orthodox Jew, who bought it as a pet for his kids.
Needless to say, he was not too happy by the verbal outbursts of the creature.
I am still puzzled that he didn’t find that characteristic out before he purchased the bird, but who am I?
Anyway, the pater familias went to the rabbi to find out how to handle the feathery culprit.
The rabbi informed him that the parrot should be slaughtered since he “sins and causes others to sin.”
Personally, I thought that you only sinned if you purposely commit an act that is sinful, but obviously, I am wrong (being a woman and not orthodox probably accounts for that).
The family father is a patient of a holistic doctor who decided to come to the bird’s rescue.
No good deed goes unpunished, so the good doctor had to fork over $ 3,000 to save it from death row.
The doctor was now stuck with a bird that has quite a mouth on it.
So how did our medical professional handle the situation? Yep, you guessed it – he consulted a rabbi!
The second rabbi recommended that the poor parrot either be put to death or have his tongue severed, which brings back images of mediaeval witch trials, doesn’t it?.

The story hit the headlines and all kinds of organizations and individuals came to the bird’s defense; some of them even protested in front of the doctor’s house.
The “Let Animals Live Foundation” took it a step further and applied to the court to prevent the pending execution (or tongue mutilation).
In its petition, the Foundation stated that there is a reasonable basis to assume the parrot will be subjected to suffering and cruelty.
Therefore, the court must interfere with a restraining order.
The ruling judge agreed and issued an injunction protecting the parrot from being harmed in any way.
For now, our feathered friend is safe.
The order will apply until a further decision is made.
In the next few days, a deliberation will be held and the court will seal the parrot’s fate.
Our good doctor is planning to attend the court session accompanied by the parrot in question.

Let’s hope our bird friend will not engage in foul language in court – that’s the prerogative of lawyers!

Vive the Eurovision Song Contest!

If you want to know what makes Europe tick, watch the annual Eurovision Song Contest.
Way before reality shows, Europe already enjoyed its own version with this music event.
Since 1956, it’s one of the major European events –aimed at bringing different European cultures together.

Participants use it as their jumping board to international fame and fortune.
Apart from Abba, no one has been successful.
To represent a country, you can be a non-citizen (not unlike players in major league soccer) or even (gasp!) American, but the country itself must be a member of the European Broadcasting Union.

In short, all European countries (and Israel) join in the festivities.
In the Cold War days, before the fall of the Iron Curtain, Western European singers had to sing in their native tongue.
Needless to say, Anglos won a lot more times than singers belting out ballads in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Dutch, or Hebrew.
A few years ago, they changed the rules and everybody can sing in English. Hurray!

The fun part is not the singing, but the voting. You see, if you want a crash course in European history, politics, and sensibilities – The Eurovision is the show to watch!
Germany, for obvious reasons, would end up with nil points, Portugal would give 12 points to Spain, and vice versa, the Benelux countries would vote for one another as would the Scandinavian countries.
Once the Central and Eastern European countries could join, there was an additional problem.
Too many countries – the live show would take forever! Since the whole shindig has to be over in 3 hours, they limited the contestants to 24.

Last Saturday, the 51st Festival took place.
And what a party it was, broadcasted on television, radio and Internet.
Greece was the host this year.
You see, once you win the contest, the country you represent is punished by having to host the next one.
The Greeks were happy though; they could reuse the Olympic facilities they built for the 2004 games.

The best channel to watch the event on is the BBC – its presenter Terry Wogan (who is an old hand at it) is wickedly funny and very non-PC.
One of his best remarks was “don’t mention the marbles”

(European History Lesson #1:
The Brits took/stole/moved the Elgin Marbles out of Greece during an archeological dig at the beginning of the 19th century and have been refusing to give them back ever since.
Even movie star and Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri unsuccessfully tried to convince the lime users that they should be a good sport and return them pronto).

I will give you my impressions – feel free to blog your reactions (do not send hate mail; the cat will eat it and throw up).

The concept is simple: song, commercial about the hosting country, another song etc. (24x in total).
After this feast for the eyes and ears, residents of each member country can “televote” for their favorite.
Points are awarded from 1 to 6 (nobody pays attention to those) and then jump to 8, 10 and 12 points. Votes are announced by a local celebrity, who takes the opportunity to promote him/herself or his/her country, showing off their language skills in the process.
The winner performs the winning song again and gets stink drunk.
(European History Lesson #2).

The Greek presenters were a young, goodlooking couple bearing an uncanny resemblance to the main characters of Will & Grace.
The female half had the annoying habit of calling everything and everyone “amazing” so I guess her name is Amazing Maria.

Overall, it seems that the Greeks told people to wear white or get lost.
More than half of the outfits were in different shades of white. Considering that the settings and lightning were gorgeous, not such a bad concept.
Between the songs were small commercials of the Greek Tourist Board.
You know what I mean – blue sea, happy people, food, drink, you name it.
Each commercial started with a gorgeous girl with long wavy hair and some blue fabric in the background floating in the wind. It looked so much like a fabric softener commercial that I promptly remembered to turn on my washing machine.

One of the first songs was performed by a Britney Spears clone from Moldova.
Sparsely clad, she chanted “moca, rocka, choca” several times. Oh what a blessing that she could perform in English!

Spain tried to cash in on “the Ketchup Song” success of 2002.
The four Ketchup sisters were dressed in red (what else?) and sitting in office chairs.
There were two amazing dancers performing some non-related modern ballet.
Their song (for reasons unclear to me) was called Bloody Mary.
I don’t know if it related to a) the drink or b) Queen Mary.

(European History Lesson #3: King Henry VIII’s elder daughter was a staunch Catholic who eliminated subjects with a different faith. Hence her nickname “Bloody Mary”)

Germany shocked the world with its version of a country & western song.
The lead songstress was dressed in a Barbie pink dress with feathers. She acted like a five-year old, despite pushing 30.

Well, if the Germans have country & western, we can bring back the twist.
At least, that is what the Danes must have thought.
Five Paris Hilton look-alikes were singing about the twist while a handsome guy twirled around break dancing. Go figure.
(no European History Lesson there!)

Favorite Russia sent a Ricky Martin/Robbie Williams look-alike.
Dressed as Marlon Brando in “A street car named desire”, he performed a song claled "never let her go" that sounded uncannily like a Ricky Martin song. Lawsuit, anyone?
For reasons unclear to me (State sponsoring may be?), he was surrounded by several graceful Swan lake ballerinas.
Half a ballerina was sticking out of a piano, which is a shameful waste of one gorgeous ballet dancer and one perfectly nice piano.

Macedonia decided to send a Fran Fine look-alike surrounded by your average MTV video dancers. Boooooooring!

Lithuania obviously had some management training or other.
Six business suits kept repeating: “we are the winners of Eurovision”.
(No such luck - Finland took the grand prize!)
It sounded like a soccer chant – including megaphone.

The United Kingdom was represented by what sounded like the cast of “Annie”.
The girls were dressed in skimpy schoolgirl uniforms –very passé as Tatu and Britney Spears can tell you.
The only redeeming feature was the excellent violin player in the background.

Host country Greece featured an Anastacia-look alike, nicely dressed in black pants and a designer variation of the famous peasant blouse.
She was one of the few that didn’t come with lots of gimmicks, background dancers and the like. For that alone she should have come in 2nd.

The most surprising entry was victorious Finland.
In a contest were the majority of the songs are copycats of MTV/VH1 successes (last year, it was one Latino song after the other), the Finns decided to go heavy metal.
The band, called Lordi, consisted of one singer, two guitarists, one keyboard player (the only chick) and one drummer, all of them dressed in full costumes and monster masks.
Think KISS going Klingon and you get the idea.
What can I say? It worked for me (being a hard rock and SF fan) and lots of voters as well.
The best part was when the lead singer unfolded his huge bat wings.
Wow, Worf would have been so jealous!
One of the guitarists imitated the tongue movements of Gene Simmons, with limited success.
The Greeks provided a fitting pop concert background, including fireworks.

Following the popular trend, the Ukraine also sent a Britney/Madonna copy in a tacky outfit and she was (guess what?) surrounded by dancing Cossacks (in red this time, and not white).

Ah, La Belle France….
Being it’s arrogant self, France stubbornly stuck to its mother tongue thus neatly ruining its chances.
Keeping in line with the Dress Code, the chanteuse was dressed in a white Grecian style frock, belting out a chanson (of course) accompanied by an excellent cellist. (He should hook up with the violinist of the Brits).

The Irish representative also went for a sentimental song.
The best feature was his resemblance to Colin Farrell, which was a nice change from all the Britney/Madonna/Anastacia clones.

Sweden tried to copy its Abba success of decades ago by sending a clone of the dark-haired female singer.
Even her outfit looked like it came out of the Abba wardrobe – gold overalls with a blue train that put the one on Princess Diana’s wedding dress to shame.
The poor dear looked like she was performing in a Fellini movie.

Turkey obliviously ran out of the most popular clone models and settled for a Donatella Versace look-alike.
At least she had the guts to sing in Turkish, which earned her 12 points from several countries (more about that later).

No contest without an icon, so during the voting break, Amazing Maria and poster boy schlepped Nana Mouskouri on stage.
After telling everyone that there “are no losers, only winners” she left the stage without singing.
This was only fair, considering the quality of the performances.

After the 24 songs were performed, it was time for the 37 voting countries to cast their votes.
During this intermission, the Greeks put up a bewildering show that somehow should have represented Greek history throughout the ages, but consisted mainly of a colorful chicken dance against opera music.

Once the votes were in, the real fun started.
You see, it went like this:

• The Russian Block, the Baltic Block and the Balkan States mainly voted for each other with the top votes (10 and 12) for Russia (you never know what will happen in the future!) and Finland (you never know if the Nokians will invade the Baltic).
• The Nordic Countries voted for each other (Norway gave 12 points to Denmark; Iceland the same amount to Finland).
• Portugal and Spain must having a tiff – they didn’t award any points to each other. Mmmm, something rotten in the Iberian Peninsula?
• Ireland gave 12 point to the UK and vice versa. Surprise, surprise!
• Malta and Cyprus gave top honors (and points) to host Greece.
• Andorra didn’t want to rock the boat with its powerful neighbor and duly awarded 12 points to Spain.
  (European History Lesson # 4: don’t mess with your neighbors if you are a tax haven)
• The Netherlands and Germany gave 12 points to Turkey thanks to the millions of Turkish immigrants in these countries.
• Russia received 12 points from Israel, where there are 1M. Russian immigrants in a country with a total population of 6M.

The 37 jury representatives of the voting countries presented a nice sideshow on their own.
Why not grab your 5 minutes of fame when you can?
The Dutch guy, who gave “dressing down” a whole new meaning, was heavily hitting on the male Greek host. He even gave his mobile phone number on air, so I sincerely hope that the idiot was spammed with heaps of obnoxious sms messages.
Belarus had a Victoria Beckham look-alike (with glasses) announcing its results.
One of the countries that didn’t survive the semi-finals happily announced that it will be the winner next year. (That will speed the voting in 2007 up!)
But Macedonia stole the show: the jury guy started serenading Amazing Maria.
(European History Lesson #5: Not since since Alexander the Great did a Macedonian show so much goodwill towards Greece).

So you see, European history is fun! And it repeats itself, every year.

See you in May 2007!